Software changes all the time. Even the most non-technical user will probably know this due to the ubiquity of the smartphone and the fact that we are constantly being told to ‘install updates’ on our devices and get the latest version of our favorite stock tracker or the new Angry Birds game… and so on.

But this is post-deployment ‘ready to install’ software. We must also remember that software also changes continuous while it is in development. Because of these core truisms, we often talk about Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) as we assign a sort of living lifecycle to the app itself.

River of constant change

This river of constant software change throws up the need for version control and [software code] repository management i.e. we need to know who changed what, when the next ‘build’ of the total application is supposed to ship and how many functional requirement changes the users have asked for.

In the midst of all of that chaos, we also need to ensure we’re applying testing tools to our apps to make sure they stay secure. It’s one of the longer acronyms in the business, but we usually refer to this process as Software Change & Configuration Management (SCCM).

This is the market sector that Perforce Software works in. The Minneapolis headquartered company is also known for its Agile planning software and the firm actually traces its history back to 1995. Perhaps more regularly known for its own organic internal growth, the company has now announced plans to acquire Burlington, MA and Rosh HaAyin, Israel-based Perfecto Mobile.

Continuous computing

The acquisition, which is expected to close this year, sees Perforce buy Perfecto for its cloud-based automated mobile and web application test software. Not that Perforce didn’t have testing capabilities inside its stack beforehand -- because it did -- this purchase gives Perforce rather more tools for continuous testing at scale across web, mobile and IoT applications.

The logic here is, if software change is constant, then more continuous testing is needed, continuously.

Perforce CEO Mark Ties has said that enterprises continue to need more automation to both scale and accelerate their application delivery. He asserts that Perfecto adds a ‘critical component’ to his firm’s DevOps capabilities, a term used to express a more unified approach to collaboration between software developer & operations teams.

"The digital transformation is driving accelerated adoption of DevOps and its activities such as continuous integration, test automation and continuous delivery to more quickly capture and engage customers online. Our Continuous Quality Lab enables enterprises to remove bottlenecks and rapidly validate and deliver mobile and web applications that engage their customers," said Eran Yaniv, Perfecto co-founder and CEO.

Perforce is backed by Clearlake Capital Group, a sector-focused private investment firm founded in 2006.

Looking at the story as a whole, Perfecto is quite well known in hard core software application development circles so is (arguably) quite a catch for Perforce. The words testing, continuous, change and automation seem to reverberate throughout so many of the more front line pieces of news now emerging in the software space... and they are all used here.

I am a technology journalist with over two decades of press experience. Primarily I work as a news analysis writer dedicated to a software application development ‘beat’; but, in a fluid media world, I am also an analyst, technology evangelist and content consultant. As the...